10 Things You Need To Know Before The Opening Bell

People stand with
umbrellas during a rainstorm along the 43rd street at Times
Square in New York July 15, 2014.REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

Good morning! Here's what you need to know:

IBM And Apple?! "Apple announced Tuesday
a partnership with IBM that will help the company greatly
increase the presence of its mobile devices in the enterprise,"
reported BI's Sam Colt. "IBM will use its sales force to sell
iPhones and iPads to its network of business customers.IBM will also develop cloud services optimized for iOS, the
operating system for iPhones and iPads."

China's Answers The Growth Question. China's GDP
grew at a 7.5% rate in
Q2, up from 7.4% in Q1. This was stronger than economists'
expectations for a 7.4% rate. "The major driver is Beijing’s
stimulus measures focusing on increasing spending on railway and
social housing with its own money," said Bank of America Merrill
Lynch economist Ting Lu. "The negative impact of the stimulus on
the financial system is thus relatively small. We believe Beijing
is quite serious about its 7.5% growth target as it needs a
stable economic and financial backdrop as it steps up its
anti-corruption campaign, so the new government will most likely
continue its mini-stimulus in the face of higher base effect and
some strong headwinds in 2H."

Yahoo! Whiffs. "Our top priority is
revenue growth and by that measure, we are not satisfied with our
Q2 results," said Yahoo
CEO Marissa Mayer. Revenue ex-traffic acquisition costs fell
3% to $1.04 billion, missing expectations for $1.09
billion.

Intel Beats. "The second quarter came in above
the expectations we provided in the April Earnings call, and
consistent with the revised outlook we released on June 12," said
Intel
CFO Stacy Smith. "It was a good quarter representing
financial growth and solid momentum as we approach the second
half of the year." Intel reported Q2 EPS of $0.55 on revenue
of $13.8 billion. Analysts were expecting earnings per share of
$0.52 on revenue of $13.71 billion.

The Inflation Story Just Got Serious. The
Hershey Company announced that it would be raising prices in
response to rising costs. "A weighted average price increase of
approximately 8 percent across the company's instant consumable,
multi-pack, packaged candy and grocery lines is effective today,"
said the company in a Tuesday afternoon press release.

Markets Are Up. Dow futures are up 52 points and
S&P futures are up 5.8 points. In Europe, Britain's FTSE is
up 0.93%, France's CAC 40 is up 1.4%, and Germany's DAX is up
1.2%. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei closed down 0.1% while Hong Kong's
Hang Seng climbed 0.2%. CNBC and Institutional Investor will host
their annual
Delivering Alpha conference today in New York City, and these
events always have the potential to move markets. Attendees will
include hedge fund giants John Paulson and Leon Cooperman. We'll
have live coverage of the event at BusinessInsider.com/Finance.

An Inflation Update. The June producer price
report will be published at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists estimate PPI
climbed by 0.2%. Year-over-year, they estimate prices climbed by
1.9%, with core PPI climbing 1.7%. "Farm prices declined again in
June and should put downward pressure on producer prices," said
Nomura economists. "However, the jump in energy prices should
put upward pressure on headline PPI."

An Industrial Production Update. The June
Industrial Production report will be published at 9:15 a.m. ET.
Economists estimate industrial production increased 0.3% in June
as capacity utilization climbed to 79.3% from 79.1%. "A small
gain in factory hours worked in the employment report and
industry figures pointing to a modest drop in motor vehicle
assemblies ahead of a scheduled rise to an eleven-year high in
July point to a 0.2% gain in manufacturing output after a 2.8%
surge over the prior four months," said
Morgan Stanley's Ted Wieseman. "Some upside in utility
production after a sharp spring pullback following a surge in the
winter and a continued strong trend in oil and gas drilling
should provide additional boosts to overall IP."

A Housing Market Update. The July NAHB Housing
Market Index will be updated at 10:00 a.m. ET. Economists
estimate this homebuilder confidence index ticked up to 50 in
July. "Sentiment had been above 50 until February when presumably
the harsh weather weighed on builder expectations,"
noted BofA Merrill Lynch economists. "New home sales have
improved, and it seems that the late start to the spring season
will support the homebuilding industry."

Fed And More Fed. Fed Chair Janet Yellen
presents her Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the House
Committee on Financial Services at 10:00 a.m. ET. She'll be
repeating what she said before
the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday. Fed watchers are
likely to pay closer attention to the Fed's Beige Book, which
gets released at 2:00 p.m. ET.
Here's Credit Suisse: "The pictures painted by recent Beige
Books may not illustrate robust growth, but they suggest the
economy is at least moving in the right direction (with that
-2.9% Q1 GDP print looking like a significant aberration). The
July 16 Beige Book may provide real-world anecdotes to supplement
the better labor market data reported recently. Any observations
from business contacts related to wage growth or pricing power
also would be of particular market interest at this juncture."